Broken pipe in the wall while removing bath spout

[simon84]

Hi all,

My partner and I recently bought a house and have been attempting to make the bathroom less fugly. I was removing the bath and shower taps to replace, but while removing the bath spout (which had no nut to undo), the threaded section of the pipe broke. I thought the bit that broke must be a part of the spout, so I took the spout in to Bunnings for advice on how to remove the broken bit of pipe from the copper pipe in the wall, but the plumbing guy there reckons the broken part is part of the pipe in the wall, not part of the spout. Does anyone know if there's a way to DIY a fix (either somehow replacing the spout or by stopping up the bath taps and covering them over and just using the shower taps from now on)?

Many thanks,
Simon

 

[oz-plumber]

If you have taps for the bath and taps for the shower in the same enclosure, you may be in trouble.
You may have to open the wall to fix, and a lot of wall.
Which would include re plumbing, re waterproofing, re tiling, re just about everything.

Temporarily, leave the bath taps off and just use the shower taps.

Big $ fix

 

[simon84]

Thanks for the reply. Could the taps not be permanently sealed off somehow and all three holes covered over?

 

[oz-plumber]

Not really..
You will have some sort of breach piece in the wall that would pass cold water through to the hot and give you mildly warm hot water throughout the house.
You need the taps to stop the water passing through.

 

[simon84]

I'm not sure what you mean about a breech piece. I called a plumbing supplies store who suggested this. Any reason it wouldn't work? The guy said this is the equivalent of having taps in there that are permanently closed.

 

[oz-plumber]

You could try those fittings for the taps and check that no water comes out out the broken outlet.
If those fittings seal and no water is coming out of the outlet, then you can seal over the tap holes and the outlet hole.

Good luck

 

[simon84]

Thanks, bought a couple of those and will give it a go.